Lone Coast Anacrusis

–"mu" fifty-third part– Some new Atlantis known as Lower Ninth we took leave of next, half the turtle’s back away. Whole bodies we saw floating, not only heads... Endless letting go, endless looking else- where, endless turning out to be otherwise... Woods all around where we came to next. We’d been eating wind, we’d been drinking wind, rumoring someone looked at God eye to eye... In what seemed a dream but we saw wasn’t we saw dirt sliding. We were back and all the buildings were gone. What were cliffs to us we wondered, blown dust of Bandiagara, what the eroding precipice we saw... Ground acorns ground our teeth now. All but all gums, we were where the Alone lived, came to a clearing lit by light so bright we staggered, Nub it was we knew we were still in... The mountain of the night a mound of nothing, Toulali’s burr what balm there was. Toulali’s burr what balm, remote though it was, lifetimes behind us now... Voice laryngitic, lost and lost again, blown grit rubbed it away... Someone had said something came to mind. Someone had sung something, what its words were no one could say. Sang it bittersweet, more brusque than bitter, song’s cloth endowment stripped... Choric strain, repeatedly slipped entablature. Given... Given endlessly again... No telling when but intent on telling, no telling what. Wished we were home again • Refugees was a word we’d heard, raw talk of soul insistent, adamant, the nonsong we sang or the song we nonsang, a word we’d heard we heard was us... Wept in our sleep, again one with what would never again be there, raw talk rummaged our book, the backs of our hands written on with cornmeal, the awaited ones reluctant again... The city of sad children’s outskirts we were in, woods notwithstanding, woods nonetheless, bright light the light we saw as we were jolted, raw talk spiraling away... We were there and somewhere else no matter where we were, everywhere more than where we were... Where the Alone lived we donned abalone-shell ornaments, light’s clarity conceded, night yet to relent, Toulali smoldered on, semisang, semispoke, wrestled with his tongue it seemed... We trudged in place, barely lifted our feet, backbeat hallowing every step we took,       moved us albeit we stayed put. We were where we were, somewhere else no matter where, evacuees a word we’d heard... Stutter step, stuck shuffle, dancelike, Toulali’s croon enticed us, toyed with us, ground gone under where we stood ______________ Day of the new dead or a new day of the dead, La Catrina had we been farther south... One of us out of Mexico remembered, with us from no one could say when... Day of the new dead a new day of the dead... Wind in off the water blew us there. A beat before. Beginning's beginning. Never to be there again... Beginning beaten back, aboriginal. The Alone collecting shells on Lone Coast... They were the awaited ones' grudge not the awaited ones, the awaited ones' wish not to be there... Grudge or its ghost, grudge against going, grudge to've been anywhere at all... Gnostic hostages down on all fours, then-again's beginning, beat before beginning be- grudged • We were in the woods again circling, not far from Lone Coast,        kids again, wondered why anything was. The city of sad children a mood swing away, we strode imagining nothing, redwoods everywhere, muttered barely audibly, “Nothing is, nothing ever was,” chill so intrinsic we shook... No lament was it, not exactly insight, precocious not quite what it was. Beginning's beginning it seemed we came abreast of, beginning's beginning's ghost... We shivered, would've shed chill's incumbency had we been able, close but absconded with, all but all done, sperichill we called it, numb... Had there been a song, had someone asked who sang it,         whitecaps rushing the beach we'd have said, whitecapped anacrusis we'd have said, long since there and gone... Lower Ninth had fallen off, protobeat, protobegin- ning, blow borne before it began borne again, the one coast it all had become now crumbling, world edge, world rebuff... Circling no end it seemed, except we stopped, stood looking at the sunlight streaming in. Churchical some would've said but we resisted, felt it that way but wanted not to. Not was no guarantee... Circling no end it seemed... Same crowded same crowded same, ad infinitum, beginning's beginning's bluff ______________